Three Bills Seek More Guidelines, Study Of Lyme Disease Testing

February 08, 2013|BY WILLIAM WEIR, bweir@courant.com

Three bills have been introduced in the state legislature calling for more guidelines in the treatment and diagnosis of Lyme disease.

"So many of my constituents have come up to me and talked extensively about the limitations in being diagnosed and being treated for Lyme in their own state," said Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, R-Glastonbury, who has introduced a bill calling for a task force to study Lyme disease testing.

"They've had all sorts of complications because it was untreated for a length of time. We need to update what we do in the medical world for evaluation and treatment."

Rep. John Shaban, R-Redding, has also introduced a bill seeking a task force to study Lyme disease testing.

A third bill, introduced by seven officials, calls for developing a standard procedure for diagnosing and treating Lyme disease. All have been referred to the joint committee on public health.

Eugene Shapiro, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine, is skeptical that a government-created task force would significantly advance Lyme disease research.

"My opinion is that creating political task forces through the legislature to determine medical practices is not a good idea for anything," said Shapiro, a member of the panel that wrote treatment guidelines for the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2006. "Why would you single out Lyme disease?"

Shapiro said such task forces are likely to be heavily influenced by politics.

"Questions are best answered by scientific studies, not politically created task forces," he said.

The treatment and diagnosis of Lyme disease has been a topic of controversy for years, mainly over the question of whether Lyme disease can cause chronic, debilitating symptoms even after a treatment of antibiotics has been administered. Within the mainstream medical community it is widely believed that if chronic Lyme disease exists at all, it isn't common.

Srinivasan said the issue of chronic Lyme disease isn't driving the bill he introduced, but that he would like health experts in the state to do more to consider it. Talking to his constituents, Srinivasan said, he believes chronic Lyme disease is a problem.

"In my mind, the answer is yes. Am I an expert on that? The answer is no," he said.

Sen. Dante Bartolomeo, one of the seven officials who introduced the proposal for a standard procedure in treatment and diagnosis, said she wants a wide range of experts discussing the disease.

"I think the whole purpose of my legislation is to get some of the smartest minds around the table," Bartolomeo said. "There are differences of opinion on this and what I'd like to see is legislation that brings these people around one table."

Bartolomeo said she has talked to constituents who complain of chronic symptoms, including cognitive and neurological problems.

"They go out of state to get the most current treatment," she said. "I've talked to a woman who has permanent thyroid and joint and heart damage because of Lyme disease. It's a very, very complicated disease to pinpoint. We need to make sure that here in Connecticut that we're keeping up with the science."

Bartolomeo said she became interested in the subject partly by the case of a girl in Middlefield. The girl's mother, Marie Benedetto, says her daughter was bitten by a tick when she was 5 and eight years later still suffers from a wide range of symptoms, including speech and memory problems.

"We need to put our arms around the whole picture to understand the impact on the state and health on the citizens," Benedetto said. "Clearly, what we've done in the past is not working. We have to change what we've been doing."